


More Distant Than a Fading Star

by openmouthwideeye



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Battlestar Galactica, Crossover, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5053630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openmouthwideeye/pseuds/openmouthwideeye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commander Coin sentences the Cylon agent known as Peeta Mellark, while Lt. Everdeen struggles to reconcile the mutt with the man she knew.</p><p>Written for the Prompts in Panem Farewell Tour: Day 2 (Other Worlds)</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Distant Than a Fading Star

**Author's Note:**

> I can't decide if I'd hate myself more for making this a chapter fic, or _not_ making this a chapter fic . . .

_He’s a mutt,_ my mind screams at me. _A frakking Cylon toaster._ I dig my nails into my palms, feeling the blood well into four perfect crescents. I will my face into impassiveness as I hear the Commander’s pronouncement.

“For conspiring with the Cylons against humanity, I, Commander Alma Coin, hereby sentence this traitor …”

The words wash over me, losing meaning. I am adrift in the black, lulled by the familiar creaking of Battlestar Panem.

 _A sleeper. That’s all he is,_ I tell myself. _A Cylon mutt, and someone’s flipped the switch._

Pain flares in my chest. I remember the horror on Peeta’s face when that pale shadow of himself strolled past the abandoned fur shop, sweeping for human survivors with a squad of Centurions. He’d dropped his sidearm into our nest of coats, scrambling away in some poor attempt at self-preservation before I finally caught him in my crosshairs. I could have ended it then, but I have always been a poor excuse for a Colonial soldier. When those familiar, blue eyes pleaded with me to fire, years of training drained away like tylium from a broken fuel line.

In the high-security brig on Panem, the assembled members of the Fleet move in unison. I salute the sharp, garbled pronouncement on instinct alone. I am too slow. In polished glass of the cell, I see the Commander narrow her eyes. But the  _criiik-schwoom_  of the hull tugs me away again, from my rigid post into memories best left buried in the rubble of Caprica: day after day when there was nothing in the world but Peeta’s hand in mine.

In his cell, Peeta rages, fingers digging into his skull as if he means to pry loose his programming and tear it to pieces. There’s little left of the stoic anguish he’d shown when I spotted my sister among the refugees from Caprica City.  _‘I volunteer!’_  I’d screamed, flinging myself from the safety of Raptor 12 into the hostile nuclear wasteland.  _‘I volunteer my place!’_ Peeta had hauled my sister into the cockpit, and I’d locked my jaw against a sob of fear and relief as I watched them lift into lower atmosphere.

I’d felt nothing but relief when Peeta stepped out of the ravaged treeline eleven days later. I am nothing if not selfish.

 _He’s not Peeta_ _,_  I remind myself. _He’s a mutt_ _._  If I repeat it often enough, sooner or later it will stick.  _He’s a frakking machine sent to gain my trust and-_

And there I stall, as if I am a mutt myself. To gain my trust, and what? Surely his mission entailed more than making a fool out of one gods forsaken pilot.

The Commander does an about-face, staring down the dozen or so officers and civilians gathered for the hearing. If I wasn’t certain before, I am now: this farce is about exerting Panem’s control within the Fleet.

 _See how we take this mutt and bend it to our will?_  her pale eyes demand. _Imagine what we’ll do to you if you jeopardize our objectives._

Cylons are no more than software, and circuits don’t deserve human rights.

“Dismissed!” Coin barks, before I can recall how much more than metal these skinjobs really are. She marches from the room. Her eyes do not linger, but her disgust with me screams louder than the CAG when he pulled me from Viper duty a month before the attacks. President Paylor follows Commander Coin through the hatch, and several officers fall in behind. Petty Officer Hawthorne marches after Dr. Beetee. He catches my eye before retreating to the bridge, sending me a look of mingled frustration and pity. I grit my teeth, hating him as much as I hate the cold triumph in Commander Coin’s eyes. As much as I hate Haymitch for sticking me on that Raptor in the first place.

I hate a lot of people these days. Gale. Coin. Haymitch. Peeta.

I hate myself most of all.

 _‘Don’t leave me here, Katniss,’_  Peeta had pleaded when the cavalry arrived to drag me home to Panem. And I hadn’t. I’d done something much worse.

Peeta’s fingers are bloody, staining his pale hair. My fingers twitch, feeling the blood drying on my own palms. The two seem inextricably linked, as if we’re bound together by more than stolen kisses and sixteen desperate days of survival.

 _Peeta never existed_ _,_  I remind myself as the small group of dignitaries filter out. _He’s a program built to play on my sympathies_ _._  Sacrificing a promotion to be my ECO. Saving Prim. Giving me his last pack of crackers as we sat huddled together on a barren planet.

_He’s not real._

I have been dismissed. I should not still be here. But no matter how forcefully I tell myself to retreat to the hangar deck, my boots stay planted.

Haymitch pauses in the empty brig—my last line of defense between the duty I’ve honored and the one I’ve forsaken. His breath reeks of liquor for the first time since my return.

“Boy’s in trouble,” he slurs.

I jolt, hearing the word  _’boy’_  echo in my head like the war had never happened. Peeta does look like a boy, slumping over in his cell to bury his head under his shackled arms. He rocks slowly back and forth, like a toddler soothing himself after a nightmare.

“What are you going to do about it, Mockingjay?” Haymitch growls so contemptuously that I can’t tell if he’s mocking me or goading me. He stumbles from the brig before I can find out.

For the first time since Caprica, Peeta and I are alone.

 _No_ _,_  I remind myself, finding the wounds on my palms and refitting my fingernails into the jagged flesh.  _We are never alone. Human or Cylon, someone is always watching._

Peeta pitches forward, forearms braced around his head as if he senses every one of those unfeeling stares. He’s panting, eyes screwed shut, cuffs slack between his mangled wrists and the bolt on the floor. His bloody fingers paint the ship as crimson as his people —  _no_ _,_  I recite, not people.  _Mutts. Machines. Monsters_ — have painted the Colonies.

I want to flee. To gas up a Viper and fly until I’m out of reserves. To leave the Everdeen legacy to Prim, who I know even now must be fighting Panem’s med team over the directives being handed down from command.

Peeta’s head rises wearily, as if the weight of it is too much for him to bear. Between the bars, his eyes meet mine.

Blue eyes. Tormented eyes. Filled with such longing and despair that I know, beyond any doubt, that no circuit could replicate the emotion there.

 _It’s real_ _._  The truth of it hits me so hard that I find myself gasping in the empty compartment. I feel his arms wrap around me, so steady and immediate that I must blink to remind myself I’m not back on Caprica. I feel his pulse —  _alive, alive, alive_  — as he holds me too tight and I warm my trembling lips on his neck. _It’s always been real._

“I’m going to save you,” I promise him through the glass. The hum of the FTL drive washes the sound from my ears, but somehow, he hears me. The fractured hope in his eyes sparks some kind of madness in me. “Stay with me,” I whisper. A command. A prayer.  _Until I can find somewhere safe._

His lips move in quiet response, but the rush of the jump swallows the sound. His eyes pull me in as the world dissolves into purple - yellow - white.

_This fight isn’t over. It hasn’t even begun._

**Author's Note:**

> Comments only take a second, but they make this whole process worth it. Please let me know what you think!


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